Warmer air temperatures since the 1980s may explain significant increases in zinc and other metal concentrations of ecological concern in a Rocky Mountain watershed, reports a new study led by the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Colorado Boulder.
Rising concentrations of zinc and other metals in the upper Snake River just west of the Continental Divide near Keystone, Colo., may be the result of falling water tables, melting permafrost and accelerating mineral weathering rates, all driven by warmer air temperatures in the watershed. Researchers observed a fourfold increase in dissolved zinc over the last 30 years during the month of September. (more…)
A UA study has found poverty, water scarcity, food insecurity and interdependence between the United States and Mexico along the border.
The U.S.-Mexico border is the border in the world with the greatest disparity in access to food and water needed for human survival, according to a report commissioned and published by the Southwest Center at the University of Arizona.
An endowment from the Kellogg Foundation and a UA Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry grant supported the study and its focus on assessing transborder food systems to understand water scarcity and food insecurity within the borderlands region.
The report underscores how in the globalized economy, Arizona and the rest of the United States rely on the skilled labor, water, fresh produce, fish, shellfish and livestock originating in northern Mexico; while in Mexico, the population is increasingly dependent upon frozen and processed foods originating in the United States. (more…)
A University of Colorado analysis of state-by-state factors leading to the Electoral College selection of every U.S. president since 1980 forecasts that the 2012 winner will be Mitt Romney.
The key is the economy, say political science professors Kenneth Bickers of CU-Boulder and Michael Berry of CU Denver. Their prediction model stresses economic data from the 50 states and the District of Columbia, including both state and national unemployment figures as well as changes in real per capita income, among other factors.
“Based on our forecasting model, it becomes clear that the president is in electoral trouble,” said Bickers, also director of the CU in DC Internship Program. (more…)
A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder indicates air pollution in the form of nitrogen compounds emanating from power plants, automobiles and agriculture is changing the alpine vegetation in Rocky Mountain National Park.
The emissions of nitrogen compounds to the atmosphere are being carried to remote areas of the park, altering sensitive ecosystems, said CU-Boulder Professor William Bowman, who directs CU-Boulder’s Mountain Research Station west of Boulder and who led the study. “The changes are subtle, but important,” he said. “They represent a first step in a series of changes which may be relatively irreversible.”
In other regions of the world, higher amounts of nitrogen pollutants correlate with decreased biodiversity, acidified soils and dead stream organisms like trout, said Bowman. “There is evidence that indicates once these changes occur, they can be difficult if not impossible to reverse. It is best to recognize these early stages before the more harmful later stages happen.” (more…)
It’s shaping up to be a fiery summer across the United States. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, as of July 3, 45 large active wildfires are currently burning in 15 states. Combined, these fires have scorched nearly three-quarters of a million acres. Since January 1, wildfires have burned nearly 2.2 million acres across the country, including devastating blazes in Colorado and New Mexico. We asked JPL Climatologist Bill Patzert to discuss the recent wildfire outbreak and whether climate change is playing a role.
Q: The U.S. wildfire season is off to an active start. What factors have contributed to the recent rash of blazes?
Patzert: Across the West, out-of-control wildfires this summer have left a heartbreaking path of destruction. The primary condition that triggered these fires was an unusually dry and warm La Nina winter and spring. These conditions primed the Western U.S. for an incendiary summer. The arrival of a persistent, scorching high-pressure system over the Western and Central U.S. just exacerbated already dangerous conditions, which reached a tipping point when strong, gusty winds sent these fires rampaging across the landscape. From New Mexico to Colorado and many other states, out-of-control wildfires are still burning through forests, grasslands and destroying neighborhoods. (more…)
A series of papers published this month on ecological changes at 26 global research sites — including one administered by the University of Colorado Boulder in the high mountains west of the city — indicates that ecosystems dependent on seasonal snow and ice are the most sensitive to changes in climate.
The six papers appeared in the April issue of the journal BioScience. The papers were tied to data gathered at sites in North America, Puerto Rico, the island of Moorea near Tahiti, and Antarctica, which are known as Long-Term Ecological Research, or LTER, sites and are funded by the National Science Foundation. CU-Boulder’s Niwot Ridge site, one of the five original LTER sites designated by NSF in 1980, encompasses several thousand acres of subalpine forest, tundra, talus slopes, glacial lakes and wetlands stretching up to more than 13,000 feet on top of the Continental Divide. (more…)
PASADENA, Calif. — Astronomers using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have, for the first time, discovered buckyballs in a solid form in space. Prior to this discovery, the microscopic carbon spheres had been found only in gas form in the cosmos.
Formally named buckminsterfullerene, buckyballs are named after their resemblance to the late architect Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes. They are made up of 60 carbon atoms arranged into a hollow sphere, like a soccer ball. Their unusual structure makes them ideal candidates for electrical and chemical applications on Earth, including superconducting materials, medicines, water purification and armor. (more…)
A University of Exeter astrophysicist has shown what sunsets look like on planets outside our solar system.
He has worked out the colour of sunsets on two planets: HD 209458 b and HD 189733 b, known as ‘extrasolar planets’ because they are outside our solar system.
Extrasolar planets orbit stars, in a similar way to the Earth orbiting the Sun. Professor Frédéric Pont of the University of Exeter has used the extrasolar planets’ ‘transmission spectrum’, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, to work out the colour of the ‘sunsets’ created by these stars.
Writing on the website ExoClimes.com, where he has posted the two sunset images he has produced, Professor Pont said: “Unlike its sister planet HD ’189, the planet HD ’209 (‘Osiris’) has a sunset that looks truly alien. The star is white outside the atmosphere, since its temperature is close to that of the Sun. It then acquires a bluish tinge as it sinks deeper, because the absorption by the broad wings of the neutral sodium lines (the spectral lines responsible for the gloomy orange of sodium street lighting) remove the red and orange from the star light. (more…)
